1. Field of Invention
The present invention pertains to the field of user interfaces for devices. More particularly, this invention relates to embedding web access functionality into devices to provide enhanced and widely accessible user interface functions.
2. Art Background
A wide variety of devices including office equipment, home-based equipment, and lab equipment, as well as a variety of other types of devices commonly provide device specific user interface functions. Such devices may also be referred to as gadgets. Office equipment includes, for example, printers, fax machines, copiers, and various types of communication and telephony devices. Home-based devices include home entertainment equipment such as televisions and video and audio players and recorders as well as security systems, automobiles, appliances, thermostats, and hot tubs. Lab equipment includes measurement devices such as oscilloscopes, spectrum analyzers and other types of measurement equipment as well as networking equipment.
The user-interface mechanisms of such devices commonly include relatively simple and low cost user input and display mechanisms. Such simple mechanisms may include, for example, light emitting elements such as LED/LCD elements as well as various types of simple input buttons or switches. Such simple mechanisms are typically constructed to be low cost to minimize the overall cost of such devices. In addition, such mechanisms are usually compact and enable relatively small sizes for such devices. Unfortunately, such simple user interface mechanisms severely limit the range and flexibility of the user interface functions provided by such devices.
The user-interface functions of such a device may be enhanced by the implementation of a screen-based user interface mechanism within the device. For example, such a device may include a display screen, and a rendering processor along with appropriate software for generating a rich graphical user interface suitable for the particular type of device. However, such screen displays and rendering mechanisms are usually expensive and increase the overall cost of the device. Such high costs are typically unsuitable for lower cost devices targeted for a relatively large mass market. Moreover, display screens and associated hardware may be too bulky for the size constraints of many devices.
A screen-based user interface may be provided for a device using an external computer system. For example, the device may be connected to the computer system through either a standard connection such as a serial or parallel port connection or through a specialized hardware interface. The external computer system usually executes a set of software for communication and user interface to the device. The external computer system may implement a screen-based user interface for the device. The external computer system may also execute web server software that enables external web browsers to access the computer system and in turn the user interface of the device.
Unfortunately, such an external computer system greatly increases the cost of providing a screen-base user interface for a device. In addition, such prior computer system based solutions usually require the development of specialized software for each particular type of device. Moreover, such specialized software for a particular device from a particular manufacturer must typically be developed for differing types of computer system platforms. Such a variety of differing software for differing platforms greatly complicates the task of providing support for the devices. Furthermore, the development and support costs of such a variety of software usually increase the overall cost of providing a screen based user interface for such devices.